By the end of the Forties Tierney was still a major star, but on the verge of cracking up mentally. Things were not helped by Cassini's infidelities. Although she later produced another child with no problems, her mind became more and more disturbed. The experience profoundly affected Tierney. The couple tried to look after her, but the task eventually proved too, and the daughter was eventually confined permanently to an institution. What Tierney did not know is that during her pregnancy she had come into contact with a fan who had German measles, as a result, Tierney's daughter was born with mental issues, as well as being half-blind and deaf. She married the designer Oleg Cassini - who forged out a movie career in his own right as a costume designer - and together they produced their first child. In private, however, Tierney's life was far more complicated. Highly attractive as a screen presence, with a desire to perpetually improve herself, Tierney shared the screen with most of Fox's leading males including Randolph Scott, Tyrone Power, and Henry Fonda. Zanuck, she was rapidly signed to a long-term contract at Twentieth Century- Fox and rapidly ascended the ladder to stardom by the early Forties.
Catching the attention of movie mogul Darryl F. New York, Berkley Books, 1980.Born into a repressive family in Connecticut, Gene Tierney achieved the impossible dream of most would-be performers when she landed a major Broadway role in THE MALE ANIMAL before her twentieth year had elapsed. "Gene Tierney: Beverly Hills Backdrop for the Enigmatic Star of Laura." Architectural Digest, 1992.
Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland, 1997. The Stars of Hollywood Remembered: Career Biographies of 82 Actors and Actresses of the Golden Era, 1920s-1950s. The popular star suffered well publicized misfortunes and subsequent breakdowns, and her aura of graceful beauty came to signify tragedy.Įllrod, J.G. Offscreen, Tierney's life embraced another incongruity. In seeming contradiction with her inscrutable features, Tierney's image also reflected her Swiss finishing school poise and sophistication, garnering her the cosmopolitan title role in the film noir classic Laura (1944) and that of the love-obsessed femme fatale of Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Twentieth Century Fox founder Darryl Zanuck famously proclaimed her, "un-questionably the most beautiful woman in movie history." With high cheekbones and unusually shaped eyes, Tierney, a New Yorker, was considered "exotic." Studios cast her in films that highlighted her mystique like The Shanghai Gesture (1941) and The Egyptian (1954). Her reputation relied on promotion of her distinctive looks and physical elegance. Debuting as a teenage model and budding stage actress, Gene Tierney soon metamorphosed into one of Hollywood's most recognizable movie stars of the 1940s and 1950s.
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